Getting this in just under the wire for tomorrow. Hopefully I have some time tomorrow to jump into the discussion. Or lurk. I’m good at lurking. I’m sure by now, most know the basic premise of this book – deadly flu wipes out a lot of the population and years later, humanity is still trying to survive. As far as dead horses and the beating there of, it’s a genre that’s been heavily explored, especially if you count zombie apocalypses into the equation. But for […]
And another one…
Arthur Leander, ageing movie-star, dies of a heart attack on stage at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. On stage is eight-year-old Kristen Raymonde, witnessing the death of a man who had been nothing but kind to her. Jeevan Chaudhary, former paparazzo photographer and entertainment journalist, now an EMT in training, jumps up on stage tries to save Arthur’s life with CPR. Later that evening, travelling home in the snow, he receives a phone call from a friend, working in the ER. There is a flu […]
I Regret Nothing
To talk about this book, I have to talk about my feelings about the novel The Road. I didn’t like The Road. The writing was very Cormac McCarthyesque and all that, and it was atmospheric but I didn’t enjoy reading The Road… because it was so damn depressing. While it was realistic and well written, it was just brutal. Station Eleven deals with a similar start (something wipes out society as we know it),however, the way the characters are portrayed and deal with their cataclysmic new […]
There’s No Place Like Home
This 2014 National Book Award Finalist is a beautiful affirmation of hope in the face of devastating loss and upheaval. Station Eleven is often characterized as an apocalyptic novel, but I believe this term is too limiting and does a disservice to the author. While the destruction of civilization is at the core of the plot, Mandel is more concerned with the creation of a new world than the destruction of the old one. This is a novel about resilience, about knowing what to hold […]